Nine Months In Iran

By George Bullen

The personal experience articulated in this book provides the reader with more than a single person’s experiential description of events during the Iranian Revolution of 1978-1979. This book is about an extraordinary and personal experience in Iran. It begins in San Diego on April 15, 1978. Three months later I awoke immersed in a parallel world populated by people of unimaginably different culture, customs, religion, and approach to coping with life’s challenges. Full of wonderment at my new adventure in a land rich with history, soon I would come to terms with changing political events while living in a neighborhood where Iran’s Islamic Revolution of 1978 and 1979 ebbed and flowed. This was the neighborhood where revolution was at its most intense, highly contested, violent, and deadly.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Aug 5, 2015
• ISBN: 9781329444171

Book preview

Nine Months In Iran

Nine Months

In

Iran

By

George N Bullen

George N Bullen

Copyright © 2015 George N Bullen.  All rights reserved

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means without prior written permission of George N Bullen.  For permission and licensing requests, contact George N Bullen at [e-mail].

Printed in the United States of America

ISBN 978-1-329-44417-1

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DEDICATION

This book is dedicated to my brother Richard. He gave me support and a place to live after I returned from Iran bereft of income, clothes, and all other belongings.

George Nick

Bullen

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to acknowledge a dedicated group of United States ex-pats and friends who earnestly tried to represent their country with decorum under the most trying circumstances.  If not for two of those ex-pats, arguably I would not be writing these words today.

Their names are Ed and Kim Wong.

I would also like to gratefully acknowledge a United States Air Force C-141 and its crew who swooped into Mehrabad Airport in Tehran and lifted me away to the safety of a calmer place; and the Turkish and Iranian acquaintances and friends who suffered to provide assistance to me at the risk of their own lives.  Some died as a natural outcome of the revolution that perceived enemies everywhere and was brutal in its persecution and prosecution.

PREFACE

Throughout written history there have been people who could string words together and bind them with emotion to make them sing with meaning.  Their unique gift was such that the feelings elicited were universal, and yet so special as to reach inside and make them personal to the reader.

Any claims I would make to such a gift would be vanity; and any attempt to portray my experiences and feelings through my own words at their literary level futile.  Therefore I write these experiences as they are.  The intent is the purity of the conveyance from my memory, my diary, my notes, and the emotions that have risen long buried from those months in Iran.

When I returned from Iran, I spoke of my experiences and then stopped realizing the listener’s attentive demeanor segued into a look of disbelief.  The sights, sounds, smells, and experiences described were so alien to those who heard them. They began to look upon me as suffering from delusion or mental illness.

Reading about today’s events I realize from a domestic United States or European perspective the Middle East appears to have a common thread of human kinship.  That may be true.  But the thread is so thin as to render the projection of our own morals, expectations, aspirations, and ethics onto their beliefs and actions futile.  I lived and worked among the people in a Middle Eastern country for months during relative good times and times of change and stress.  The experience is different than a United States or European diplomat, visitor, or reporter.  They see what is shown them or surmise from observation.  It is also different from the thousands of United States and European military personnel who observe and develop opinions and beliefs about their Middle Eastern experience from a radically different perspective.

I went to Iran as a naïve confident believer in my own objectivity to observe and immerse myself into another country and its rich history.  A country emerging into a modern 20th century world and filling with high-technology and Western thought.

I left shaken, not so much by the life threatening events that shaped much of my time in Iran, but by the realization that there are places in the world that exist and will continue to exist well beyond our ability to intellectually comprehend.  It was sad to face such a disheartening limitation.

However, actions and reactions will always end equal, my physics professors used to say.  The take-away was the ability to observe and read about Middle Eastern events and know why they occurred and what would happen next.  I have an understanding of their view of US and Western culture.

Many years after my Iran experience I was invited to a California company called Applied Minds where I was taken into a highly classified room to observe a revolutionary technology.  The technology was applied to provide a multilayered hologram derived from current and historical satellite observations back to the beginning of Iran’s nuclear program.   By simply waving a hand, the image could take the observer back through time to a remote plot of desert beside a road and then progress forward in time as pits were dug, centrifuges installed, buildings constructed, and defensive technology installed.

Waving my hand another direction provided other information such as the regions geological composition, earthquake frequency and intensity, traffic and vehicle types, and deliveries.  Waving my hand another way would take the observer up a road north to a missile development and manufacturing facility.  Observing the nuclear technology types and quantities as they were installed, enthralled me because I had just watched a CNN report where Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said that Iran’s nuclear program was only for peaceful purposes.  Of course I know better.  Not just because of the technology that gave me a clear view of their nuclear plans for weapons and a delivery system, but also because I understand what Iran will say and do to leverage their understanding of our culture and logic to their advantage.

That is why this book is relevant today.  The personal experience articulated in this book provides the reader with more than a single person’s experiential description of events.  As a caveat, it should be noted that every single US ex-pat, European, Asian, and African’s experience was different in Iran.  Personal experiences are.  How they perceived Iran during the revolution is also affected by their location and in-country timeline as much as their nationality, race, religion, and ethnicity.

This book is about an extraordinary and personal experience in Iran.  It begins in San Diego on April 15, 1978.  Three months later I awoke immersed in a parallel world populated by people of unimaginably different culture, customs, religion, and approach to coping with life’s challenges.  Full of wonderment at my new adventure in a land rich with history, soon I would come to terms with changing political events while living in a neighborhood where Iran’s Islamic Revolution of 1978 and 1979 ebbed and flowed.  This was the neighborhood where revolution was at its most intense, highly contested, violent, and deadly.

My Iranian life and experience began in a quiet neighborhood that turned violent.  The revolution that swirled all around my house rose in tempo until robbed of furniture, heat, food, electricity, water, transportation, and communication, my situation, indeed my existence became desperate.    Sleeping on the cold floor during winter for 40 nights, my house was fire bombed and set on fire.  Nightly firefights left pock marks from bullets in the external and internal walls.  I witnessed a revolution at its core.  History is rife with examples of revolution and its effect on countries and people.  It is never pretty; always violent; and never prosecuted for the publically advertised reasons.  It brings out the worst of actions by the best of people, and enables, excuses and gives vent to the worst behavior of those inclined to violence.  Opportunists exploit and common people die.  There are no innocent bystanders to the revolutionary.  In their mind you must demonstrably take a side or die.  Passivity is unacceptable.  Neutrality is an illusion and a dangerous pursuit.

My rescue came after the Shah left and Ruholla Khomeini returned.  The rescue was executed by a coordinated and combined force of United States military and civilian personnel and their Iranian counterparts.  It came after the outcome of the revolution became clear.

The experiences and adventures of a young naive and idealistic person living in Iran 37 years ago during the Islamic Revolution might seem dated and irrelevant to the contemporary reader. Five thousand years of culture and fourteen hundred years of religious indoctrination cannot be changed by Twitter, Facebook, emails, Internet, instant messaging, smart phones and computers.

The relevance of the information is as valuable today as it was then.  Religious law rooted in ancient culture drives Iran’s logic and approach to its relationship with the international community.  Most other countries in the modern era have freed themselves from the absolute authority of religion.  To be sure, it still exerts the pressures and moral influence over all of us in the western world.  But the absolute power of religion as interpreted through priests has faded to a remnant of its dominant self during the past centuries.

Iran and the Middle East still live by the influence and laws of their religion.  This region, where it is believed that religion was born, still clings to its priesthood as the interpreter of God’s will, (inshallah).

INDEX

Chapter One - June (Jumada II/Rajab), 1978/2537/1398

It seemed like a good idea at the time.

Chapter Two - July (Rajab/Sha’ban), 1978/2537/1398

What a strange work environment.  What strange customs.  A river runs through it.

Chapter Three - August (Sha’ban/Ramadan), 1978/1398

I have friends, colleagues, neighbors, and other folks.

Chapter Four - September (Ramadan/Shawwal), 1978/1398

This is odd…very odd!

Chapter Five - October (Shawwal/Dh-Qa’ida), 1978/1398

I feel funny…something just does not feel right!

Chapter Six - November (Dh-Hijja), 1978/1398

I don’t think this is what I signed up for!

Chapter Seven - December (Muharram/Safar), 1978/1399

Sell some stuff and take a vacation.  Everything seems fine now.

Chapter Eight - January (Safar/Rabi’ I), 1979/1399

Iran SERE (Survive, Evade, Resist, Escape); or D⁵ (Dodge, Duck, Dip, Dive, &…..Dodge).

Chapter Nine - February (Rabi’ I/Rabi’ II), 1979/1399

This is nice.  But where can we go?

Chapter Ten – March, 1979

What the hell just happened!

Chapter Eleven – September, 2013

As it is and always will be.

Common Words and Phrases

Landmarks & Maps

CHAPTER ONE

June (Jumada II/Rajab)

1978/2537/1398

It seemed like a good idea at the time.

An emperor knows how to govern when poets are free to make verses, people to act plays, historians to tell the truth, ministers to give advice, the poor to grumble about taxes, students to learn lessons aloud, workmen to praise their skill and seek work, people to speak of anything, and old men to find fault with everything.

-  Address of The Duke of Shao to King Li-Wang, ca. – 845 BCE.

This story begins:

Gregorian calendar: The year, 1978

Royal Persian calendar: The year, 2537 (in 1978)

The Royal Calendar begins 559 BCE and represents the number of years since establishment of the Persian Empire.

Islamic calendar: The year, 1398 (in 1978)

The Islamic Calendar begins AD 622 when Muhammad emigrated from Mecca to Medina.

Iranian Rial to Dollar exchange rate 1978, 70.35 IRR = 1.00 USD (Fixed)

Iranian Rial to Dollar exchange rate 2015, 12,250 IRR = 1.00 USD

This book begins with calendars and dates for a reason. The reader immersed in the current world forgets what it was like to live, strive, and survive in 1978/1979.  A recalibration of our current reality is necessary to develop an understanding and relationship to the events contained in this book.  It was a different world in every way.

The Tandy Corporation was one of the leading computer technology companies in the 1970s. Their most popular item – the TRS-80 – arrived on the market in the late 1970s and was immediately popular. People waited for the release of this product that was exclusively sold at Radio Shack. For only $600, many everyday people could afford to have a personal computer in their home. In fact, over 10,000 units were sold within the first month of the TRS-80 being on the market. In 1977, the Apple Company introduced their Apple II model. The Apple II was well-received by the public because it was produced specifically to market to the masses. People during the late 70s embraced the personal computer and used them for a variety of reasons, including games, office applications, home finance organization, and storing data.  However, Twitter, instant messaging, email, Internet, cable TV, cell phones, smart phones, and GPS did not exist. 

It was the age of the 8 track player, a gallon gas was 63 cents, and you had to get off your ass to change the channel on your television; selecting from any of three channels.  Average rent was 260 dollars a month and a house loan went with 13 to 14 percent interest.  Jimmy Carter was President of these United States of America and inflation was running around 7.62%.

President Jimmy Carter brokered and signed the Camp David Accords with Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin and Egypt's Anwar Sadat who both received the Nobel Peace Prize. In effect the accords removed Egypt from the fray in the Middle East.  The year before (1977) trying to smooth diplomacy with emerging Latin America, President Jimmy Carter signed the Panama Canal Treaty with General Omar Torrijos Herrera giving control of the canal to Panama in the year 2000.

So…to summarize; limited access to global information. Primary communication was through the mail and telephone.

That was the United States in 1978.  In Iran, it depended heavily on where you were.  Some places in Iran still existed in a medieval world.  Others were more modern with the conditional realization that technology emerged extremely fast into a society that was overwhelmed by its functionality and application.  Laws designed for the medieval world or a Bedouin desert life simply crashed headlong into the necessary laws and activities that had evolved in the West to facilitate an orderly society.  It was as if a person was picked from the dark ages and suddenly dropped into a modern society and not given any instruction to cope.  The trauma of the transition was everywhere displayed in overt and covert displays of frustration.  Oil had spawned resources in money, influence, and power; while absolute authority in the form of a King-of-Kings (Shah-in-Shah) drove change down the throat of a culture rooted in 4000 year history of continuity.  People like to get up every day and know what is expected of them.  People in Iran did for millennia.  Then suddenly….not.

The technological kicker was an old man exiled to France who arguably recognized the coming age of individualized communication that would eventually trump mass communication.  Sitting in France, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini (or his advisors) initiated the spread of a new technology that made its way into the homes and cars of Iranians yearning to hear a personal message from a fatherly agent of change.  The technology was cassette tapes.  Before cassette tapes politically controlled messages were mostly transmitted by mass media such as television, radio, gatherings, and theaters.  Cassettes personalized the message and brought it for individual and private consumption.  The Ayatollah exported thousands of personalized revolutionary messages into Iran fanning the flames of discontent until they grew to rage as a revolution.  The Shah realized too late the impact of personalized political communication.  Cassettes were banned after the floodgates had been opened, the message spread and were shared by millions.  To stem the surge of cassettes was tantamount to stopping tweets or instant messages.  The damage was done.

The fire of idealism rooted in youth accelerated the revolution kicked it into gear.  50% of Iran’s population in 1978 was between 15 and 40 years old, with a median age of ≈24.  There were approximately one million more males than females; all yearned for leadership devoted to their societies realignment with faith and ancient heritage.  They were struggling to reconcile deeply ingrained beliefs with a changing world without having a vision or a plan.

Fueling the resentment and fanning the revolutionary flames was the Shah’s absolute authority.  It was used to push, pull, drag, and beat the people into the 20th century without a modicum of empathy for those that resisted change and clung to the comfort of ancient custom, tradition, and religion.  The club was SAVAK, the secret police.  There was nothing you could do or say that was not listened-to, observed, scrutinized, and evaluated.  Have a dispute or hate your neighbor?  Turn them in.  Torture was normal and accepted as a method; not a reprehensible action with moral association.  And by torture I mean real torture.  Not waterboarding or sleep deprivation but violent suffering prolonged by experts who could extend your life as they sought to shorten it with excruciating pain.  The people’s fear and loathing of SAVAK combined into another layer of energy that fueled the revolution.  Arguably the Revolutionary Guards that replaced SAVAK are no better.  But the people of a nation reject organized spying and cruelty from a dictator but accept it if it is a popularly accepted enterprise.  Democracy can be just as cruel and distasteful in its application of tyrannical suffering as a dictator’s.

With people's revolutionary rage, the king will be ousted and a democratic state, Islamic Republic, will be established.

- Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini   Imam's Sahife vol. 4 p. 244 (1 November 1978)

This was the message from France, articulated by the Ayatollah and played in a million cars as they drove the streets of Tehran and other large and small cities of Iran.

Four other contributors led to the perfect storm that brought down the Shah; the US press, Iranian students studying in the US, the Iranian army, and weather.

The United States press was a contributing factor in the Iranian Revolution as they wrote from the perspective of the poor oppressed populous yearning to breathe free.  In Iran and the United States, this perspective left the Shah with a problem of perception. He was painted in print and on television as the villain. His ouster was necessary to free the Iranian people from their oppressor.  The US press ran story after story of people suffering as the Shah tried to restore order.  60 Minutes ran a segment about intellectuals at Tehran University and how they lacked freedom to openly pursue their studies.  What the press excluded in their zeal to fan the flames of revolution, was that the replacement government would be no better than the government it replaced.  It was just as cruel.  But violent revolution makes a great story and graphics.  This same scenario plays out today as each Middle Eastern country falls like dominos and reporters from CNN and other news agencies run from story to story, impervious of the vacuum that will remain.  Free the people without a replacement government and often the most violent entity replaces what has left.

Another contributing factor was the Iranian students returning from their studies in United States in 1978.  The revolution had died down by November, 1978 and there was an expectation that future normalcy.  Iranian students returned back to Iran like reserves rushing in to shore up a faltering assault in battle.  They were fresh to the fight and wanted to be active participants and contribute to the fray.  They reinvigorated the fatigued fighters on the line with energy and stories from the US press extolling the revolution’s virtues.

The army contributed to the success of the revolution when its loyalty to the Shah began to falter.  Every soldier must choose their loyalty.  If a nation’s revolution is prosecuted to a point where the military is killing a large group of its own citizens, then doubt breeds dysfunction and breaks-down discipline.  In Iran, this condition manifested itself where individual acts began to spread through the ranks.  Here and there a single soldier confronting his fellow citizens and ordered to fire, turned his weapon on himself and took his own life.  A single incident spread and a common soldier’s decision collectivized into entire units deserting, refusing orders, or staying in their barracks until only the most loyal and elite of the Shah’s troops remained.

And the weather played a role in the revolution.  While it might sound ludicrous that weather contributes to the vigor and tempo of revolutions, when evaluated it becomes an obvious contributor.  Monsoons and driving snow storms are not conducive to people taking-it-to-the-streets.  Neither is 120 degree temperatures and high humidity.  I worked on one of the first advanced artificial intelligence systems as Principal Investigator at a defense firm in the 90’s.  One of our team was recruited by the Department of Defense (DoD) to develop a revolution-predictor software program.  The 26 year old with 4 PhD’s was whisked away to the top secret program.  Before he left, we learned that one of the prime contributors for triggering a revolution or civil disturbance was weather conditions.  Of course there were other contributors, but weather was way up on the list.  It was a mild fall and winter in Iran.  Prime weather conditions for revolt.

Now the stage is set.  Let the story begin.

It was a beautiful beginning.  The sun warmed my back as I sat on the couch in front of my living room window.  I was reading the Sunday newspaper in my apartment on Miraleste Drive located between Rolling Hills and San Pedro, California.   I lived a short two hour coastal drive North of San Diego.  Occasionally I would look up, enamored by the beauty of the day as it slowly passed.  I opened the paper and perused the Help Wanted ads.  Not because of need, but because I was always looking to see what was available.   The overseas employment section of Help Wanted ads fascinated me so I read further.  Bell Helicopter International was hiring buyers for helicopter systems and components.[1]  I called.  The voice that answered sounded vaguely familiar.   As the conversation continued the Bell Helicopter representative ask my name.  To my surprise, we knew each other.  We had worked together at Rohr Industries a few years earlier as aerospace component buyers.   He and some of that team had gone to Iran for Bell after I left Rohr and